The Sculptor

Chapter 37

The plan from the beginning had always been David, but it was the Pietà that had inspired him to actually start working—yes, the Pietà around which the development of his skills had evolved. And so, that it should have been the Pietà that ended up causing him so much trouble bothered The Sculptor greatly.

In the two weeks since his second exhibit—in the two weeks since he had been almost caught—The Sculptor followed attentively every single story about him in the media. Yes, he saw many times the still photographs of him that had been taken from the police dash-cam, the ludicrous FBI composite sketch of what he might look like under his ski mask, the details of his height and weight, the pictures of the make and model of his van—all that blahdy-blah-blah.

In the end, however, such details did not worry The Sculptor, for in the end The Sculptor knew such details would not hurt him. No, what really got under The Sculptor’s skin was his understanding that—although he wasn’t quite sure how—the police and the FBI had one way or another figured out where he was going to exhibit his Pietà. And even though it had quickly become obvious to him that the authorities had made their discovery only at the last minute, The Sculptor—putting two and two together from the media reports—nonetheless had a good idea who might have tipped them off.

Dr. Hildy. It had to have been Dr. Hildy.

The Sculptor threw the weight bar back onto the rack with a loud clang. He had benched more than ever today—was well aware that he was channeling his frustration into his workouts in a way that was unusual for him. The Sculptor’s workouts in the cellar were normally quite methodical—steady, calm, and unemotional. But today, The Sculptor felt restless, felt helpless—like he needed to be working. Everything was all ready for his David—the video, the base and frame, the epinephrine, the formaldehyde, the chemicals for the Plastination process. He had even repainted the van—had disposed of the phony satellite dish—and would start working on switching it out for something else once he got his new material. All he really needed now was the right material. But because The Sculptor could not figure out exactly how Dr. Hildy and the FBI had managed to guess the location for his Pietà, instinctively The Sculptor felt it was too dangerous to go shopping just yet.

And just where would he go shopping? Not on the streets of South Providence anymore; not on the Internet, or up in Boston where the FBI now knew the RounDaWay17 material had come from. No, the FBI would be looking for that. Besides, The Sculptor had understood from the beginning that, with the unveiling of his Pietà, he would no longer be able to use that kind of material anyway; he understood that he would have to go back to shopping for material as had done for his Bacchus.

True, the news reports erroneously claimed that The Sculptor had found his material for the Christ figure on Arlington Street in Boston. And if the FBI did in fact know about RounDaWay17’s Craigslist account, they most certainly hadn’t revealed it to the press. No, The Sculptor was not worried about that—knew that it would be impossible for them to trace RounDaWay17’s online activity now that The Sculptor had hacked into, changed, and deleted the young man’s account.

No, it was the gnawing not-knowing of exactly how Dr. Hildy and the FBI had figured out the location of his Pietà that worried him the most.

At least everything is ready, he said to himself. That’s some comfort.

In the beginning, when he first began experimenting with the pieces of the women, The Sculptor would travel all over New England picking the locks at the backs of funeral homes and stealing just enough formaldehyde to get him by—just enough so it would not be missed. But The Sculptor observed in his travels that many of the funeral homes produced their own formaldehyde, and later, after he accidentally stumbled upon a picture of Rhode Island native Tommy Campbell on the Internet—when he saw the resemblance to Michelangelo’s Bacchus, when he understood that it was his destiny to have the wide receiver for his first exhibit—in addition to putting his Pietà on hold, The Sculptor decided to start producing his own twenty-nine percent formaldehyde solution in the small lab he had set up off the wine cellar to manufacture his epinephrine and his high-powered tranquilizers. Using a technique of methanol conversion that he learned on the Internet, there in the cool damp bowels of his family home he could prepare and store not just his formaldehyde, but all his chemicals; and when he was ready, he could transfer them to barrels and wheel them up and out of the back hatchway door for use in the carriage house.

It was a very efficient system.

However, as was the case with the Plastination process in the carriage house, more than the actual acquisition of his chemicals—the majority of which had been either distilled from common household products or stolen barrel by barrel from warehouses that weren’t even locked—the biggest problem for The Sculptor in his cellar lab was always the ventilation. And despite the numerous exhaust vents that he had installed, despite the gas mask that he always wore, after working for long hours in his cramped laboratory The Sculptor would sometimes begin to feel dizzy. And on those rare occasions when he would accidentally touch the epinephrine—highly concentrated synthetic epinephrine that he had also learned to manufacture from his hours of study on the Internet—he would start to sweat, would feel his heart speed up and his head go all loopy. The Sculptor, however, did not mind such temporary changes within his body—the dizziness, the speedy heartbeat—as in a way, he thought, it helped him connect to his creations.

But The Sculptor did not like the change he felt within his body today; nor did he like the emotions bubbling up inside of him when he thought of Dr. Hildy. And as he slid two more plates onto his weight bar, The Sculptor could not help but feel as if the pretty art history professor had betrayed him.

The Sculptor had been smart enough to know from the beginning that Dr. Catherine Hildebrant would be at the very least an unwilling accomplice in his plan. But after all he had done for her, after he had specifically used her ex-husband for the body of his Virgin as a favor to her—that same man who had betrayed her, that same poopy-head who The Sculptor had followed for years, who he knew was having sexual relations behind the good doctor’s back—yes, Dr. Hildy could have at least held off on telling the FBI about his Pietà until it was in place.

The Sculptor blasted out six more reps on his bench, and when he returned the bar to the rack, it was as if his mind at once had cleared. And in a flash of insight, The Sculptor suddenly understood the brutal but simple reality that, if indeed it had been Dr. Hildy who had led the FBI to his Pietà, then there was a good chance that Dr. Hildy might do the same with his David. Hence, although it had never been part of his original plan, The Sculptor understood all at once that the best thing to do in order to guarantee a smooth exhibit of his David was to get rid of Dr. Catherine Hildebrant.

And much to his surprise, The Sculptor suddenly felt a lot better.